Hardcore music fans have their beloved bands' tour schedules seemingly imprinted on their souls, but those of us with more casual devotions may have trouble keeping tabs on our favorite artists' performance dates. Enter Songkick Concerts, a slick Android app (free) (also available on iOS) that notifies you when an artist plans to come to your town. Concertgoers, consider Songkick Concerts a must-have download.

How Songkick Concerts WorksSongkick Concerts lets you obtain concert information in two ways. One option is the active way. After logging in with your Facebook credentials (sadly, this is the only way to use the app), tap the "+" icon, key in an artist's name, tap the search button, select the artist's database entry, and then tap "Track." You'll know that an artist is on tour if you see a red "On Tour" sash adorning the listing. If the artists aren't on tour, Songkick Concerts simply displays "No Upcoming Events."

If tapping icons is a bit too much exertion, you can simply let Songkick Concerts dig up tour information for you. When you launch the Songkick Concerts, the app automatically scans your device's music file library (as well as Last.FM and Pandora mobile apps) for artists to match against its database—and it works surprisingly well. Nine of the ten music tracks on my Samsung Galaxy Note II pulled an artist entry—even a song from the relatively unknown Death Grips. Songkick Concerts didn't recognize a Heems track, but overall I was impressed that the app has its ear tuned to both popular and underground acts.

"Artists" displays a thumbnail grid of performer images showing performers you manually added and those which Songkick automatically generated based on your music file collection. When you bring a finger to the icon of an artist on tour, Songkick Concerts displays the tour dates, tour venues, and locations. Tapping the entry takes you to a second screen where you can let others know if you're attending ("I'm going"/"I might go"), check out the venue location on Google Maps, view other artists in the event lineup, purchase tickets (from the likes of LiveNation, Stubhub!, and others sellers), and view other Songkick Concert users who plan to attend the same show.

"Calendar" displays the shows you may attend and artist tour dates. It also lets you add a date to Google Calendar if you prefer to house tour information there—a nice touch. "Locations" lets you add cities that you're willing to visit to attend shows. For example, I inputted Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, so Songkick Concerts only displayed tour dates from artists who are planning to appear in those cities. Songkick Concerts makes finding concerts very simple.

Party On, Wayne Whether you're a concert frequenter or simply want to see a live music show once in a while, Songkick Concerts is the Android app to download. Songkick Concerts not only lets you view when your favorite performers are coming to town, but lets you purchase tickets, too. It quickly became my go-to app whenever the idea of attending a live show popped into in my head. Music fans: get this app.

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For more than a decade, Jeffrey L. Wilson has penned gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for a variety of publications, including 1UP, 2D-X, The Cask, Laptop, LifeStyler, Parenting, Sync, Wise Bread, and WWE. He now brings his knowledge and skillset to PCMag as Senior Analyst.
When he isn't staring at a monitor (or two) and churning out Web hosting, music, utilities, and video game copy, Jeffrey mentors, practices Jeet Kune Do, blogs, podcasts, and speaks at the occasional con. He also collects vinyl and greatly enjoys...
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